L.A. Schools Drop ‘F’ Grade for Youngsters

Worried that too many of its students are failing in the early grades, the Los Angeles school board voted Monday to do away with failing grades.

Pupils having trouble in kindergarten, first grade or second grade will now get a report card with an “N” grade, meaning “needs improvement.”

Supporters of the change said it will prevent young children “from feeling like failures at age 6,” said board member Jackie Goldberg, who added that this early labeling causes children to dislike school and may even lead to their quitting.

Bad grades in school “have a psychological impact on very young children,” added school Supt. Harry Handler.

Response by Critics

But critics said the poor grades were not a cause of failure, but a reflection of it.

The traditional “A” through “F” marks will be kept for students beyond the second grade, but several board members said they would like to change that too.

“This doesn’t go nearly far enough,” said Goldberg, the sponsor of the motion, which was approved on a 5-2 vote.

Noting that 43% of Los Angeles students drop out before graduating from high school, Goldberg said, “Dropouts begin when a bureaucracy systematically discourages young people (by giving them failing marks). Why do you think we have so many children who get up in the morning with headaches, stomach aches and who don’t want to go to school?”

Goldberg said she favors a system in which a child’s parents and teachers talk about the areas in which a child is doing well and those where improvement is needed--without attaching a grade label to the performance.

While Goldberg said this system would tell parents more, board member David Armor said dropping grades would tell them less.

“No system is better understood by parents than the traditional ‘A’-to-’F’ system,” said Armor, who along with Roberta Weintraub voted against the grade change. “This will just diminish the information that is available to parents.”

Armor added that he favors conferences between parents and teachers--but not as a substitute for grades.

Although “A”-to-”F” grading is considered the traditional pattern, it has been anything but the tradition in Los Angeles schools. Throughout the 1970s, city schools--and sometimes individual teachers within those schools--were permitted to use their own grading procedures.

The grading cards also came in six languages: Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Armenian, Spanish and English, according to school officials.

Standardized in 1981

“We had complaints from parents about having one child who got an ‘A’, a second child in a different grade who got a ‘B-3’ (meaning ‘B’ level work for a third-grader) and a third who received a written evaluation,” said Lorna Round, assistant superintendent for elementary education.

In 1981, the board voted to standardize the grading system. Schools were told to use either the “A”-to-”F” scale or an alternative that included “O” for outstanding, “G” for good, “S” for satisfactory and “N” for needs improvement. Under Monday’s vote, only the second scale will be allowed for the youngest students.

The board also approved on Monday a related proposal by Goldberg to require parental consent whenever a student is to repeat a grade. Last year, Goldberg and board member Rita Walters contended that too many children in the earliest grades--about 3%--were required to repeat a grade. Both said this was another means of branding a child as a failure.

School officials said the change will not alter the number of students who are retained each year, but will ensure that parents approve of the decision. The officials added, however, that parents typically agree when a teacher recommends that their child be held back.